Movie Night
by KitCat Italica
Summary: Crane has never watched The Wizard of Oz.


Movie Night

Dr. Jonathan Crane marched down the dank hallway, his footfalls piercing through the heavy silence with each step. It was well past midnight by now, and he was ready to return home and continue with his newest experimental drug research for another few hours before going to sleep. Yet his buzzing mind compelled him to remain at the ancient building where he worked, going through the same motions he had gone through every night for the past four years. The orderlies and nurses who normally took the night watches were so incompetent, so utterly _useless_; they dropped off quicker than flies, either leaving their jobs out of fear, becoming victims of the horrible mishaps and "accidents" that were becoming more and more common occurrences the longer the costumed freaks remained, or even reverting to the conditions of their prisoners, succumbing to the vice grips of insanity and becoming patients themselves. Dr. Crane felt that _someone_ should step up to the plate and make sure that the loonies weren't up to any mischief, so he took it upon himself to patrol the corridors night after petulant night. He had learned that if you wanted a job done right, you had to do it yourself. It seemed he couldn't trust anybody with _his_ precious asylum.

So on he marched. The crazies all seemed to be asleep by now, letting their nightmare-infested dreams take control of their already-unstable minds. A few pitiful cries and enraged screams echoed from behind the closed doors, yet Crane paid them no mind. Nothing to get worked up about. The real challenge would present itself when he reached…_them_. The _costumed_ crazies. The true lunatics of this place. He always hated the last leg of his nightly circuit, for he hated seeing them. He hated each one of them with every last ounce of his will, every fiber in his being. Even with straightjackets and the heaviest of locks and security – courtesy of the Wayne Foundation – they still found a way to slink their influences through the triple-layered Plexiglas and fester in his brain. He never left the asylum with a clear conscience when he passed their cells, for the memories they dredged up were like poison in his veins.

Memories of when he was one of them.

Oh yes, society had found a way to ensnare him in his own establishment, make him a prisoner of the place as well as his own mind. He had been labeled a freak, and by virtue of his other persona, Scarecrow, had been imprisoned in Arkham Asylum in one of the maximum security cells. Psychiatrists constantly entering his room to pester him with questions he would remember himself asking patients just months earlier, orderlies pumping him full of tranquilizers whenever he lost his temper and tried to strangle the questions out of the interrogators, just to _make them stop_...that was the real madness. He had been completely sane when they had forced him in, yet sometimes he had even caught himself wondering if he had truly become as unhinged as they had made him seem.

And slowly, he had acquired neighbors. The cells had gradually filled around him with a plethora of people, men and women who were so completely off their rockers it made him shudder at the sight of them. A clown who had dressed in purple and wore paint on his face, yes, that had been the first, and the most horrifying of the lot of them. Never had he seen a more fascinating or appalling case before in his lifetime. Then there had been the man who always asked questions, pondering curious conundrums that made Crane's head spin with their complete and utter_ pointlessness_. There had finally been a man who had stumped the thinker, however – a pedophile who had once interrupted the puzzle master's endless tangent of the chicken and the egg with the simple question: "Why is a raven like a writing desk?" The Riddler (as he had called himself, to which Crane would mutter "the Fiddler" under his breath, after witnessing some particularly shocking nighttime acts the man would perform on himself) had sat in stumped silence for the whole rest of the week, constantly swearing and raving indiscernibly to himself, before finally giving up.

The botanist woman had later answered it for him, after arriving in the asylum three weeks later. She was soon joined in her cell by a girl no one had ever expected to see on the other side of the Plexiglas – Dr. Harleen Quinzel, the very psychiatrist who had been assigned Dr. Crane's case not a month before. Rumor had it that she had fallen for a certain scarred jokester, and had thus found herself in amongst the lunatics. What went on in the two women's cell, Crane had not the constitution to ask, though from the moaning that constantly issued from the cell every night, he could fairly accurately guess.

Next had been an even more surprising development: a certain former district attorney had been marched out of the maximum security cell and placed with him. Everyone had watched in stunned silence as Harvey Dent was led in a straightjacket down the hallway; it had been assumed that he had been dead for the past three years, though apparently he had survived the fall during the fiasco involving the Batman and Gordon's family, and had been kept in the most secret of cells, all information regarding his case completely classified. He had been a bothersome cellmate, going on and on about how it wasn't fair and wailing something about "Rachel", the mention of whom gave the two-face a severe beating as memories of a taser wormed their way into Crane's mind…

There had been such a collection of rogues, such a myriad of total circus freaks, that Crane had been more desperate than ever to prove he didn't belong amongst them. For he _didn't_; all he had done was try to thrust Gotham into a full-blown experimental drug trial, on a massive scale no one had seen the likes of before. Once he had realized it was getting out of hand, he had tried to interfere and warn the assistant D.A., Rachel Dawes, yet the thankless bitch had hit him with a taser, scarring him permanently. It seemed that all one needed these days was a _scar_, and you got a free pass to stay in Hotel Arkham, Freaks and Lunatics Deluxe Resort. You could check out anytime you like, yet you could never leave…

…and thus, here he was. Still employed at the only place he could easily perform experiments on patients under the radar while still practicing psychopharmacology, still surrounded by the people he so loathed and and was repulsed by. But he could never bring himself to quit no matter how much he wanted to; if he didn't maintain a watchful eye on the star patients, they would all be running amok in the city, searching for him, wanting him to join them, where they all said he truly belonged…

…no. He couldn't have that. He had to ensure they stayed where they belonged, on the inside of the cells. And he had to ensure he stayed where _he_ belonged, on the _outside_ of the cells, to constantly remind them of what the true status quo really was, and what it would always remain.

He passed the still forms of Mad Hatter and Riddler, lounged out on their respective cots, arms pinned to their sides. Across the hall from them, Two Face slumped in the corner, knees curled up to his chest, chin resting on his knees. _His old cell._ Quickly, Crane moved his electric blue gaze to the cell next to Dent's, to where Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy were supposed to be sleeping (more often than not in the same cot, much to Crane's disgust). Yet, it took a while for Crane to realize…they were all awake. And were all staring at _him_. The worst was Harley, who kept eyeing him with the most amused of smiles, biting her lower lip and shaking with barely-contained laughter. Tears were forming on the corners of her eyes, so great was the mirth she was trying so hard to conceal. Crane rolled his eyes and was about to continue on his way out of the asylum, when he heard her ear-splitting voice resound after him:

"Hey, Jonny…where you headed?"

Crane turned on his heel to glare at her, hoping the sheer intensity of his hatred would be enough to shut her up, and when it didn't appear to, replied, "As far away from you as possible."

"Oh, it's not that way," Harley giggled back, her brimming squeals of laughter threatening to break through. "Maybe you should try _following the Yellow Brick Road!_"

And with that, the entire hallway burst into thunderous laughter.

Crane glared mirthlessly at the five convulsing crazies before him, clueless as to why they appeared to be laughing…_at_ him. He had no idea _what_ Harley had meant by that comment, but it hadn't seemed as a particularly high-praising remark, as made evident by the reaction of her and her fellow prisoners.

"Yes!" gasped out Ivy in between rasping giggles. "And then maybe you'll-you'll f-find your way to the Emerald City-hee-hee-ee-hee!" And she collapsed off her cot onto the concrete floor of her cell, writhing in amusement.

"Oh, before you go," Riddler squealed out, "I have been wondering something for quite some time, maybe you've figured it out by now." He panted for breath, then walked on his knees to the door of his cell, meeting Crane in the eyes with a look of total seriousness. That is, until he blurted out, "Wh-wh-why is the ocean near the shore?" and exploded into another round of guffaws and giggles, as Hatter kicked the air in his laughter.

Crane was getting more and more fed up with these pointless comments and queries that made no earthly sense to him, and spun around furiously to turn his back to Riddler and Hatter, when Harvey – who rarely joined the lunatics in their maddened antics – answered Riddler for him. "Well, he obviously doesn't know, Riddler, he _doesn't have a brain!_"

He rolled around on the floor with the rest of his comrades-in-insanity, as Harley gasped out, "Though tell me, Jonny old boy, w-wha-wh-what would you d-do-hoo-hoo with a brain if you ha-ha-HA-had one?"

To which Ivy breathlessly replied, in between high-pitched cackling, "You're so sm-smart now, though, why don't – why don't you show us your degree-ee-hee in-in…_Thinkology_?" Which started up another wild eruption of laughter from the fivesome in the cells.

Crane had grown quite livid by this point, and coldly replied to the breathless freaks, "I haven't the slightest idea what you are talking about," and turned to leave.

The laughter abruptly stopped.

Crane, more than a bit confused by this turn of events, turned back to the five behind him, who were now staring at him with the most shocked of expressions on their faces.

"You know…" Hatter prompted him, hoping to jog his memory, "the movie? Toto, Wicked Witch..?"

"_What_ are you carrying on about?" Crane snapped, thoroughly perplexed and maddened by the fact that the lunatics knew something that he didn't.

Ivy and Harley gasped wordlessly in shock. "You're serious then?" Ivy breathed. "You're actually telling us that you've _never_ seen The Wizard of Oz?"

Crane paused. The title seemed slightly familiar, but he had certainly never seen any such film by the name. He had never been quite the movie-watcher, as a child or as an adult. The fact seemed ludicrous to the five before him, however.

"Well, that's something we'll just have to fix, then, won't we?" came a grating, nasal voice behind him.

Crane's eyes just barely revealed the churning sensation in his stomach as he cautiously turned around to see the Joker, dressed in his full ensemble of purple and green, a knife resting tamely in his gloved hand that was flecked with paint residue from reapplying his signature makeup. Alarm bells sounded in Crane's head as he desperately scrambled to come up with an escape plan, yet found none. There was no way out of this, the Joker was going to kill him, he was walking towards him now, that wicked knife glinting brighter and closer and closer –

xxx

Crane sat back in the dusty couch and huffed in annoyance. This abandoned warehouse was _filthy_, and was starting to agitate his sensitive allergies, yet he had held in all his sneezes, for he wasn't about to add that fact to the pile of knowledge of his personal self that his former cellmates had already accumulated. They now surrounded him, Hatter and Riddler sitting to his left, Ivy between him and Two Face while resting her head on his right shoulder (much to his annoyance), with Joker curled up in Harley's lap at his feet. Joker had been about to escape and continue in his war on Batman, but after learning the shocking truth that Crane was missing out on such an integral part of his childhood, had made an exception for the night. He had released the rest of the inmates, and they had all but dragged him along to the Joker's dingy hideout, where they were now forcing him in front of the static-filled screen of the ancient television set before them, watching an old VHS tape of The Wizard of Oz.

He hadn't been counting on having a movie night at Joker's.

Yet here he was, watching this idiot pigtailed girl talk to her little mutt and make friends with an axe-wielding man made of metal and a talking lion that was afraid of everything. The fourth member of the entourage, however, was the person that his companions had been wanting him to see the most, and they had constantly pointed out where their many references made earlier that night had come from.

The Scarecrow. A man made of straw with a bag over his head.

Who was nothing at _all_ like _him_.

This bumbling idiot possessed none of his superior intelligence, or his dominating psychiatric analyses of everyone he came in contact with. No, this buffoon was perhaps the clumsiest, most brainless and idiotic of all _idiots_ he had ever seen.

He wondered what his companions were trying to say about him with the comparison.

Now, the flying monkeys were swooping in, attacking the five freaks who were trying to find the Wicked Witch's broom. At the sight of the flying demons, Crane's chest clenched. He felt Ivy's head raise off his shoulder an inch as she perked her head up to the sight, while Mad Hatter and Riddler set their jaws in anger. Two Face tightened his grip in the coin in his right hand, shaking with violent fury at the parallel between the creatures on the screen and the creatures that haunted the nightmares of each and every one of them. Even Harley had sat up straighter, clutching her Mr. J in her arms tightly in quiet protectiveness. Joker raised his head to look up at the edginess of his companions, and quietly said, "Well, we're all thinking it, I'm just saying it."

He turned his head back to the TV screen, his eyes shining with that light that only he possessed when he thought of his greatest enemy, their mutual enemy that had bound them all together in mindless hate and fear.

"They look…like_ batssss._"

Crane's spine shuddered at the word, as memories swam before his vision…the fear gas flooding his system and captivating his senses as he looked up at the terrifying figure of the Batman, barraging him with senseless questions that washed over him in a wave of panic…

His mind snapped back into focus as the girl hugged Scarecrow goodbye, saying tearfully "I think I'll miss you most of all." All six of his companions cooed at the affectionate display, as Ivy playfully planted a teasing kiss on his cheek, while Joker patted his knee, jeering "Well aren't you the ladies' man, Jonny!"

It wasn't long before Jonathan found himself laughing with them, while wondering to himself if maybe this _was_ where he truly belonged.

* * *

**Ah Jonny, what you've been missing out on. I was reading a fic last night by Elizabeth Tudor called "Harry Potter and the Wizard of Oz", and when the Scarecrow came up I immediately thought of Crane. Who wouldn't? ^.^ Hope you enjoyed. And thank you, Lizzy, for the inspiration. 3**

**Don't worry, Batman/Joker shippers, I'm working on my next slashfic. It should be up in a few days, this next weekend by the latest. Prepare for madness, hate, and hot gay sex! :D**


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